


The End of the Beginnings

by thequeenmeera



Series: If Not For You [5]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, The Grand Finale, You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-26
Updated: 2018-12-26
Packaged: 2019-09-27 19:31:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17168006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenmeera/pseuds/thequeenmeera
Summary: Arya and Gendry get hitched at last





	The End of the Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not good at math but our ships and their kids are:  
> Jon & Daenerys - children are Daerion (5y), Rhaena (3y), one on the way  
> Sansa & Edric - children are Eddard (3y), Alia (2y)  
> Bran & Meera - (living) children are Lyra (2y), Cregan (newborn)  
> Shireen & Devan - Argella (2y) is an only child so far  
> Some characters like Devan, Edric, some of the children etc didn't get to make it on-screen. Sorry.

Arya cooed at baby Cregan and lightly pinched his fat red cheek. He gurgled at her and quickly fell asleep at which point Arya handed him back to his mother. Meera had always been attached to her babies, but at least she was letting Arya hold Cregan. It had taken hours of coaxing to convince her to let anyone touch Lyra when she was born.  


“Can’t I hold him now? I promise I’ll be gentle,” Daenerys asked. She’d already risen from her seat and walked over to Meera’s chair. The northern queen gave the southern queen a hard look before grinning and letting Dany take him. It was a little odd, Arya thought, seeing Dany with her own belly sticking out and holding a newborn. Dany’s new girth from her latest pregnancy made carrying anything awkward but she managed it well enough.  


“I’m next in line,” Sansa said without looking up from her sewing. “Then Shireen can have him.”  


“Thank you Sansa, I was worried I wouldn’t get a turn,” Shireen said from her spot on the floor. The older children were playing with their toys around her except for Princess Rhaena who was trying and failing to braid Shireen’s hair.  


“You can all hold him,” Meera said with a wave of the hand, “until he needs to nurse and he’s been hungry almost every hour,” her speech was interrupted with a long yawn and she sunk back into her chair, obviously exhausted.  


Sansa made a face, “that’s the worst part of having a newborn. When your milk is coming in and all the baby wants to do is _nurse_.”  


“Hmm, I remember that. My breasts were always sore.” Shireen ruffled little Argella’s hair.  


“And chapped,” Meera said, gingerly touching her own breast at the thought. “Even with all the salves and tinctures the maester comes up with.”  


“And Arya will know what we’re talking about soon enough,” Dany added with a grin.  


“I already know exactly what you’re talking about. I’ve been around plenty of women and newborns. Meera’s right there,” Arya waved in her good-sister’s direction.  


They all laughed. “You may know logically but you haven’t experienced it yet. You will soon enough though,” Sansa said with an air of finality.  


“Within the year I think,” Meera said.  


“I’d rather you not place bets on how soon I’ll have my own children,” Arya groaned.  


Dany laughed “We already have.”  


Cregan began to fuss in Shireen’s arms and she dutifully handed him back to his mother to nurse.  


“Are you excited for the wedding Arya?” Shireen asked.  


Arya shrugged in response, “I suppose it will be nice to _be_ married. We’ll be allowed to share a bed without sneaking around or pretending at anything – oh you all know very well that I gave Gendry my maidenhead years ago – but I don’t suppose anything else will change.”  


Meera frowned, “No, most everything _will_ change once you’re wed. For better or worse.” Meera ran her fingers over Cregan's feathery hair and sighed. He was sucking greedily, Arya wondered if it did hurt.  


“She’s right Arya,” Dany said. “Once you’re wed and you’ve taken your place in your holdfast Gendry will have more responsibility as a lord and the whole kingdom will watch him and raise their expectations for him as the king’s good-brother. People will expect you, Arya, to produce children. That can take a toll,” Dany was watching Meera who was already nearly asleep while she nursed Cregan. Arya could see the dark circles under her eyes and whenever they stood close to each other Arya always noticed the small lines in her good-sister’s face that appeared in ever greater numbers over the years. “The way people interact with you will be different. I believe you and Gendry will get on well enough but there will be a period of adjustment.”  


“Perhaps lovemaking has something to do with it, but I found myself loving Edric so much more once we were wed,” Sansa said.  


“And I love Jon more with each passing year,” Dany said with a growing smile.  


Little Daerion ended the women’s talk by forcing Arya to join him in a game.  


The days leading up to the wedding were full of last minute fittings, meetings with the cooks and servants. Arya spent nearly all her time with the head steward, ensuring that all of the guests who had come from the North and South had rooms and clean sheets and all the other minutiae of running a household while the queen was still recovering from Cregan’s birth. Rickon had taken Arya’s place in Bran’s council. The thought made Arya sad more for her youngest brother’s loss of innocence more than for the loss of her beloved position. Rickon was a good young man and would serve well, he already had when she’d been the queen’s companion during her visit to Greywater.  


On the evening of Arya’s wedding she stood before the long mirror that Bran had once sent to Lys for for Sansa’s nameday gift. Sansa had left the thing in Winterfell when she went to Dorne with her husband and it proved rather useful in preparing Arya for the wedding. While Arya was far from vain she did wish to ensure that she was not used as her sister’s doll. Her dress was ivory and embroidered with fine gray thread all about the sleeves, hems, and neckline. The cut was simple and when Arya had complained that the neckline plunged too much, even with the lace that covered her chest – “nonsense, this is much more modest than what Southron ladies wear” Sansa chided – Sansa had added an ivory-colored stay behind the lace.  


Daenerys had braided Arya’s hair in a Northern, though somewhat Dothraki inspired, style herself. She had found an assortment of blue winter roses from the glass gardens and wildflowers in white and blue and purple to be woven into the braids. In a way the flowers reminded Arya of the crown she and some of the other women had made for Meera’s wedding though they had been different flowers in brighter colors and had been made into a crown, one that had been a horror for Meera’s chambermaid to remove the next morning since they’d gotten tangled and dried overnight. Most noble women did not wear flowers in their hair but the flowers fit Arya as they had her good-sister.  


Finally Arya had donned simple slippers that matched her dress and they had all stood around the long mirror to admire the bride. Arya studied her face in the glass. For a moment she saw what people meant when they called her beautiful. She looked noble and fierce and _beautiful_. Arya looked away, out the window at the darkening sky where the stars were beginning to appear.  


Once deemed ready the ladies had left Arya alone for a few minutes while they went to the godswood and Arya waited for Jon to come fetch her.  


“You look beautiful tonight little sister,” Jon said. Laughing when Arya screeched and jumped away from the mirror where she’d been examining her face in privacy. “Are you ready to go down?”  


Arya glanced in the mirror again, then at the sliver of sky in the window. She swallowed the lump in her throat and breathed deeply, “Yes.”  


Gendry smiled when he saw her coming. He still smiled rarely and he smiled for her. Arya didn’t even notice her family and friends her were smiling and whispering at her.  


The ceremony was quick, Arya liked that about Northern weddings. There were no recitations from the Seven-Pointed Star and while strict and traditional Northern weddings did not waste time on pageantry. When it was over Gendry kissed her before the heart tree while the whole wood, the whole castle even, filled with cheers.  


During the feast there were toasts and jests. The crowd cheered every time Gendry leaned over and kissed Arya. They had waited for so long to wed. Gendry had had to leave Winterfell, even Westeros for a time. He’d been lord of Storm’s End but quickly handed it over to his cousin Shireen. He’d wandered in Essos and taken up work in several different trades. Arya had waited for him, knowing that eventually he’d discover what it was he needed to discover – that he was not too lowborn for her to love him, that he had a place in the new world they were building and that it was by her side – but he had to learn it on his own. It had been just as hard for Arya to swallow that lesson. Often she’d gone to one of her brothers to complain or to worry that Gendry might never come back only to be reminded that he’d come back before.  


“We’re bonded for life now,” Arya remarked after their celebratory lovemaking was finished for the night.  


Gendry frowned at her, “I thought we’ve been bonded for life since we met.”  


“I suppose you’re correct.” Arya ran her fingers along the arm he’d kept wrapped around her. “But you can’t leave me again. Where you go, I go.”  


“Was being apart really so terrible?” he kissed her and hummed low before burying his face in her neck, “It was. I know it was.”  


“And you’re never leaving me again.” Arya did not let him argue.  


While Meera did not win her bet it was not very long before Lyra and Cregan gained little cousins who lived within a day’s ride to play with. Bran’s most trusted councilor visited Winterfell often. Gendry eventually settled into his role as lord of a holdfast though sometimes he would help with laborious tasks. He grew into a more amiable man over the years; Arya claimed that he mellowed with each new baby. He said it was the summers.  


While the Starks and their friends and relations suffered through many years of suffering and loss they did eventually recover from their losses and those who survived lived in a more general state of happiness than one might have expected them to.  


**Author's Note:**

> So I missed the Christmas window but you can give me comments for a birthday present since that's this week too!


End file.
